Irony
by foxy crimefighta
Summary: the soft twinkling of melodic bells separated them from things worth accepting. —Axel and Kairi, for doodlebug.


. x . hotel lobby -- )

♥

. x . irony -- ;  
. x . for xsynthetic-smile -- ;  
. x . kaixel -- ;

× - - - ¤ - - - ×

It was here where he met her, and here where he didn't say goodbye.

It wasn't meant to be anything, really, all they'd done was gotten their luggage mixed up by accident, and they became maybe-friends but she wasn't sure; she only realized when she found him crawling through the air ducts that he was just really quite weird but that didn't matter because he'd enjoyed her company and she'd tolerated his and that was how it began, and how it ended, too suddenly to really think of anything reasonably coherent on the subject at all and neither of them accepted it because it was never set in stone to begin with, nothing worth accepting, it wasn't truly happening and maybe they were too numb, maybe they forgot, maybe time healed their wounds before they'd realized they'd been hurt and the last thing he knew was true, if nothing else was, that she had fallen asleep while he tried to pry her fingers off his shirt and it hadn't worked, he'd given up without much effort.

And so it began and it ended, with him stepping through the cherry wooden threshold that separated them from things worth accepting. Fire lapped at his heels, and she stared and stared because as a general rule fire did not follow in people's footsteps except in science fiction movies, and even then the majority of them were cruel, evil beings.

He didn't look evil, not in the slightest. His hair was frightening, the fire was threatening, the tiny teardrop tattoos under his eyes were most certainly intimidating but he was grinning and the pools of green were bright and excited and he looked more like a child than anything. The fire disappeared when he snapped his fingers jovially.

It was only later, when they finally sorted out the luggage mix-up and she'd gathered the courage to ask him about it, that he cheerfully explained to her that he was a fire eater, one of the traveling performers visiting her home. _Lovely place, lovely, _he'd told her with a wink and she had snorted. Maybe he was contagious, because his wild hair and his fire tricks and his small tattoos would have definitely seemed ridiculous to her at any other time than then, when she was staring at him and he at her and he had proclaimed she was stalking him, much louder than necessary, her face not quite as red as his hair and not quite as dark as hers, but somewhere in the middle.

It was their favorite place to meet, the middle, the smack center of nothing and everything and the core of life as he taught it and she learned it, their hearts. The middle was the best place in the world, he told her, because there was one road leading somewhere and too many roads leading nowhere; or maybe it wasn't the _best_ place, maybe it was just _there _and they both knew it. This was how they viewed the world and accepted the world, even if it might not be anything to accept at all.

They often had long discussions about virtually trivial things, such as what socks they hadn't packed and why they hadn't, although it was more one-sided because he was _weird_ and nonchalant and apparently had nothing at all better to do then have meaningful talks about socks and microwaves and porcelain dolls, about picture frames and grand pianos and flavors of various cheeses, of refried beans and whether or not using the phrase "not unlike" was repetitive.

She didn't share that strange trait; she was factual and precise and logical, but such insignificant details _interested _her when it was him explaining them,more so then she ever would have thought.

_Well, well, what have we here? You don't like fairytales, Kairi? _he once asked her, crooked smile gracing his features and eyes wide with wonder and maybe just a dash of disbelief; and she hadn't known what to say.

As a child, there was no one who liked fairytales more than she. Climbing onto her mother's lap, with a storybook in hand, every night for years and years and this was her life. Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, forever and always (or so she had thought, before --)

She used to dress up in much-too-long gowns of her mother's, rolling up the sleeves (they always fell back down, of course) and tripping over the hem (it trailed behind her like a wedding dress, but more clumsy) and pretending she was the princess in the fairytale. She used to talk to an imaginary faerie friend, named Alice, because Alice was her favorite name back then and it seemed fitting, somehow. She used to sneak into her mother's makeup cabinet and smear lipstick over her childish pout, putting on way too much blush with the pouf that made her sneeze, and crying a bit when she got mascara in her eye (because she hadn't been sure how to put in on correctly, and it looked like she did it right, all the same).

She used to love fairytales, before the _crash_.

No one had seen the drunk driver turn the corner at frightening speeds, until it was too late. Kairi remembered being happy because her mother was going to take her shopping for the very first day of school, and it was her birthday. She remembered the laugh on her mother's face, the warm hug enveloping her, the crown she had placed on her head because "she was princess for the day," a tradition carried through every year on the day that she turned a year older.

Now, she tried to convince herself everything seemed a blur.

She hadn't read a single fairytale since then. She made certain to disregard everything that reminded her even vaguely of the fascinating stories; becoming engrossed in schoolwork because it was one of the few things that _never changed._ She became the "brainiac" of the class, and her creativity and imagination refused to show themselves, so much that eventually she didn't have to try to push them into the corners of her mind. They stayed there without complaint.

"Couldn't you _try_?" he asked.

"No," she said.

What she didn't tell him was that her walls were crumbling without any effort at all, after she had worked so hard to keep them stable. She found, surprised, that after fifteen years she was beginning to become _happy _again, loving his stories more than she would have thought possible after storing away such memories with such _force._

She was learning to be the child that she never had a chance to become.

His fire was what fascinated her the most, although for some reason he was fond of teasing her when she asked him to perform for her, little things like "oh, sorry, what was that? I wasn't expecting little miss know-it-all to ask such an _impractical_ favor," and she'd kick him and it hadn't really hurt but he'd let her think it did.

Apparently, he had always been riveted by the concept of fire, the element of destruction and sensuality and death but _life _in every meaning of the word -- the phoenix, reborn from its own ashes and it didn't make _sense_, it was so very _ironic_ and that was how he loved things. Irony was his twisted sense of humor, how he got his kicks, it was _funny,_ cruel in a way.

_well, how ironic. irony, ironyironyirony and that's how he got his kicks._

How ironic.

The day his troupe left town, he did too. There wasn't a warning, so very like him, doing things stupid and reckless and very, very sudden. She noticed it had gotten much quieter around the hotel they stayed at, too quiet and he was missing and she didn't understand, why would he just _leave_ without a _word?_

He left without a word, not a goodbye or anything, and she missed his stories and his fire and his _essence_ that had become such a huge part of her life without her realizing it until, well how about that, it's too late now. The sheer _emptiness_ that made its presence known left a gaping hole in the middle of her chest, taking a part of her heart and a part of her lungs and a part of her stomach; the part of her life that he had claimed as his was _gone_.

She thought this might be what love felt like. She wasn't sure. She hadn't really had time to fall in love.

She hadn't really had time to do anything at all. He'd left too soon.

She went home that day.

♡ - - - - ¤ - ×

OCTOBER.

♡ - - - - ¤ - ×

NOVEMBER.

♡ - - - - ¤ - ×

DECEMBER.

♡ - - - - ¤ - ×

It was decided, on the fifteenth day of December, that she wasn't in love with him after all.

Her life had continued as though he'd never existed. Her walls were rebuilt as though they'd never been torn down, as though they'd never gotten their luggage mixed up by accident, and they'd never became maybe-friends, she'd never found him crawling through the air ducts and never realized that he was just really quite weird and it hadn't ended, because it'd never been, wasn't too sudden to really think of anything reasonably coherent on the subject at all.

_And neither of them accepted it because it was never set in stone to begin with, nothing worth accepting, it wasn't truly happening and maybe they were too numb, maybe they forgot, maybe time healed their wounds before they'd realized they'd been hurt and the last thing he knew was true, if nothing else was, that she had fallen asleep while he tried to pry her fingers off his shirt and it hadn't worked, he'd given up without much effort._

But that had never happened, as far as she was concerned.

♡ - - - - ¤ - ×

NEW YEAR'S EVE.

♡ - - - - ¤ - ×

Her fingers were icy and her breath was frozen and her thin body was stone cold, but she charged through the hotel entrance anyway with the resolve of a girl who was frustrated and furious and annoyed and didn't need crap right now, because what she ran here for was much more important than anything else, anyone else, and nothing was stopping her. The bell tinkled softly. She wanted to rip it off and eat it.

She halted suddenly as she turned the corner and found herself at the door to the lobby. It was utterly absurd, she contradicted her actions firmly, that there was any chance at all of _him_ coming back to the city she grudgingly called home. It was ridiculous, unthinkable, insane, and why had she even come here? There was nothing to make sure of. Nothing worth accepting.

All the same, she couldn't help the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

It was that night when she unfolded the daily paper and read the front page with disinterest, scanning the articles for something worth knowing, and a phrase caught her eye and repeated itself in her mind, againagainagainagain --

_-- fire eaters._

The article further said, as she read eagerly, heart overreacting and beating a thousand times faster than it was surely supposed to, that the troupe had come back in honor of New Year's, and were performing right outside the very hotel that she had stayed at, once upon a time.

She didn't bother to calm herself as she bolted to the receptionist's desk, nearly shouting in her impatience, "Is it true? Are the fire eaters back?"

The receptionist looked up from her romance novel, startled, and replied with a slight nod. Curiosity was evident in her expression.

"Is a man named Axel with them?" Kairi asked anxiously, hardly daring to believe it, words flowing so fast with excitement that they blended together in an intangible blur.

The receptionist's expression immediately softened and turned almost rueful, and she hesitated for a few very long moments before replying. Her voice was sad, and sounding apologetic with grief. Kairi's heart stopped altogether.

"I'm ... very sorry, dear. Axel ... died yesterday, in a fire accident. The whole troupe was practicing, and ..."

But Kairi didn't hear anything else after that.

Somewhere, a clock stroke midnight.

. x .

How **ironic**, that he died on the day of rebirth,  
like the phoenix rose from its ashes.  
How _ironic_, that he died from the very  
thing he loved most -- the one thing that understood him  
as well as he himself understood it.  
How ironic, and that was how he got his kicks.

. x .

_x_x_x -- fin._

. x .

a kaixel for XSYNTHETIC-SMILE.  
isn't that exciting? i know you love them.  
& .. happy belated birthday, dear.

this was a bitch to write. seriously.  
it was stubborn in the ways of .. not turning out right.  
hope it ended okay-ish. & also that everyone  
(or very nearly everyone at least) actually caught the gist of a plot  
within the layers of run-on sentences and lack of periods  
or other such grammatical functions. they're useful.  
you should use them more often than i do.

inspired by le WONDERFUL felia-chan's story,  
that she oh-so-kindly wrote (for me! like;zomg) called;  
FAIRY T A L E. geez, i love it so much. to bits.

FEEL ADORED, FEH-FEH.

oh yes. this is for HANA'S contest-thingy -- H O T E L . L O B B Y.  
i TRIED to think of something suitably awesome, dear.  
don't think i did a very good job. oh well.  
but yeah, kaixel owns & everyone should write one.

ILYHANA&FELIA&XSYNTHETIC-SMILE! xD

lovelovelovelovelove.

& KTHXBAI


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